to Baku

A couple of days ago, we went to bed at about 9:00pm, got up at 12:00am to go to the airport for our 3:30am flight. The 4 hour flight took us to Moscow, which was unfortunately further from our final destination than where we started. But such is the nature of travel in Central Asia. It would be like flying from Nashville to Phoenix via Anchorage.

Anyway, Ella was a little too excited for this plane ride (her 40th), and when we were ready to lay back and sleep, she was awake as she's ever been. One especially interesting thing was the safety instructions (which kept her occupied for quite some time)...
...where this well-endowed, if not profoundly retarded flight attendant shows you what to do "in the event of an emergency"...
Now even kids will know how to pull the door off and jump out if we go into a death spiral over the Caspian...

Never before has struggling to survive an almost certainly fatal crash been so fun...

Actual quote from Ella: "da pwane cwash inda waudau, daddy" (the plane crashed in the water, daddy). I think its gonna be a race for that desert island...

Finally, after flying for over 2 hours, she finally gave up...

But then it was time to land and the 5 hour layover in Moscow. Look, Mommy, duty free! While we dozed, she danced...

Finally flying over Baku...

It is a pretty sad story from the air. If you look closely you can see oil derricks mixed in with housing...

More oil farming...

After landing we got out for a quick walk to the waterfront, where, in case we didn't get the picture from the air, we were reminded yet again that up from the ground comes a bubblin' crude, oil that is; black gold, texas tea (admit it, you've got he song in your head now, right?)...

The place we are staying for the first couple of nights has some fun stairs up to our room. Actually it is more like a ladder. Ella refused help.
We've got one more day to be tourists and relax before the conference/class begins. More later, when we get a chance.